The often-overlooked sport of robotics has been a competitive activity for students on Molokaʻi for nearly 15 years. Elementary, middle and high school robotics teams have won state, national and international awards.
A total of 16 Molokaʻi High School students have logged long hours and late nights building and perfecting a robotic machine. They work out of a tiny workshop set up at the end of the school cafeteria.
With limited resources, assistant coach Kodie Place said creativity is the team’s secret weapon.
“That’s the one good thing about Molokaʻi — we work with what we have and we’re creative. This set up right here, there’s three levels to a scoring post: Levels three, two and one. We use a desk, a craftsman vacuum box and a pizza box. But you know what? It works," Place said.
Nicknamed ‘Ekolu, the robot stands chest high and can perform tasks like picking up and dropping cones onto a goalpost and placing cubes on platforms of different heights.
Students can start in elementary school with a program called VEX IQ Robotics, learning fundamentals of design and programming by assembling predrilled plastic pieces. By high school, students design, build and program from scratch. They create robots that can weigh more than 100 pounds using metal, electronic components and intricately programmed mechanics.
Edwin Mendija is a graduate of Molokaʻi's first high school program and has been coaching robotics since 2012. He said a lot of teams use laser cutting and precise machining for their builds, which Molokaʻi doesn’t have.
“We’ve adopted a strategy where we reuse a lot of stuff we’ve had in the past or things laying around. We’ve kinda become this team where we’re known for being the resourceful team — we use whatever we can, because obviously, we can’t get stuff on Molokaʻi as easily, so we reuse as much as possible," Mendija said.
Team member Aristotle Oamil calls their limited resources an opportunity.
“I think the disadvantage gives us an advantage because we become more resourceful, we make connections asking for help, we figure out how to do things not the usual way you’d do it but it would still work," Oamil said.
Chevy Bush, a junior at Molokaʻi High, has been participating in robotics since elementary school. He's a driver on the team, meaning he uses a live stream view from the robot’s camera to control it during competition. He’s developed a trick to maintain laser focus during the chaos of competition.
“What I do is I 'X' out everything around me, sometimes people literally have to shake me to tell me the time, I’ve had that happen to me before," Bush said.
"Everything is right there… the little distractions, you cut it out. Super stressful," he continued.
Over the past few months, the team has regularly worked until 10 p.m. or midnight practicing after school. Coaches volunteer their time.
The financial commitment is huge, too. It costs about $5,000 to cover just the entry fee to compete in the high school league. Building the robot costs a few thousand, or more depending on a team’s resources. Molokaʻi students pay around $8,000 more for airfare, lodging and shipping their robot and equipment to Oʻahu.
The team recently traveled to Honolulu to face off against teams from Hawaiʻi and the continental U.S. — as well as China, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia. They made it to the playoffs before getting eliminated.
For students at Kauanakakai Elementary School, the Worlds competition is on the horizon. They recently won two awards at the state tournament and are headed to Texas in May to compete with about 800 teams from around the world.
Coach Place said the experience goes beyond just robotics.
“It opens up a whole new career path for all these folks — especially here. The future is robotics," Place said.
